That figure is less than what is proposed in Senate and House versions of a bill to reauthorize transportation spending for the next six years.
"(A veto) would not be good for the Republican majority if we have a Republican president vetoing a major bill like this," said DeMint, R-S.C., recapping a conversation with Bush and other South Carolina Republicans aboard Air Force One for the president's trip to Charleston. "My intent is to get it at a level that we can pass it and the president will support it."
Bush, who has yet to veto a bill, proposed $256 billion in transportation funding for 2005. A $375 billion transportation bill is pending in the House, where there is talk of a gas tax increase. A $311 billion bill is pending in the Senate.
South Carolina receives about 90 cents for every $1 it collects in gasoline taxes, which goes into a trust fund. The state's lawmakers are pushing to increase that return to about 95 cents and to pump more federal money into the state Department of Transportation. If successful, the state could receive $3.8 billion over six years -- roughly $1.1 billion more than the previous six years.
"The predicament that South Carolina is in is one of the driving forces behind the delay in this bill," said Bill Buff, spokesman for the American Highway Users Alliance in Washington.
DeMint, who is against a gas tax increase, is one of two members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who haven't signed onto the House bill.
"I know the president is not going to accept that, and I don't want to create a showdown," DeMint said.
"For me, the wrong thing to do is just to accept whatever the chairman (Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska) does when it is bad for the country," he said.
DeMint said Friday that he would push for support of a separate bill that would allow states to use federal money on state-maintained roads.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., whose district includes Beaufort County, is one of several co-sponsors.
"What we are trying to do is help our state do more with less," DeMint said.
The state finds itself in a Catch-22, said Michael Covington, spokesman for the S.C. Department of Transportation. In order to qualify for federal money, states have to match the federal dollars. That means the S.C. Department of Transportation typically depletes its money in order to match the federal funds. But federal dollars can't be used on the state's secondary roads. That leaves the state with less money to maintain those roads.
More than half of the state's 42,000 miles of roads are state-maintained, Covington said.
DeMint's bill "would allow us to spread our budget around our entire system and not have to use 80 percent of our budget on 40 percent of our roads," he said. "Our biggest problem is lack of state dollars."